CVE-2016-2568

Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2017-02-13 · updated 2026-10-08
Weakness: CWE-116

Description

pkexec, when used with --user nonpriv, allows local users to escape to the parent session via a crafted TIOCSTI ioctl call, which pushes characters to the terminal's input buffer.

Affected products

Freedesktop Polkit: all versions
Red Hat Enterprise Linux: 6.0, 7.0

References

http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/02/26/3
https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2016-2568
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=816062
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1300746
https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2016-2568
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/02/26/3
https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2016-2568
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=816062
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1300746
https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2016-2568

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